Peace like a River
by ExquisiteDetour
Summary: Origin/Flashback Story. After BDM. Dove, a woman who Mal grew up with and was his first love, happens to be on the same planet as him and the crew. Oh yea, and they both think that the other is dead. Mal/OC


I'm trying out an origin-type story that has been rattling around in my brain for a while now. I obviously own nothing; otherwise this show would still be on the air.

Let me know what you think!

Rated M for a reason: language and sexual situations, possibly violence.

Oh and_** bold italicized** _means it's in Mandarin.

* * *

He remembers the feel of her hand on that day. The little calluses on her fingers and the way her thumb moved back and forth on his hand. Warm and soft and home like. He remembers pulling her along a little when she paused by the alley. The one he and Mama had pulled her out of almost seven years earlier.

She was starving and barely breathing. Mama heard her wheezing in the late evening, while she and Mal were picking up Papa's birthday pie from the baker. They had to get there before they threw the old pies away, so they could pick one out for a good price. After that day, she stayed with them. Flew off every once in a while, Mama said she was afraid of getting too attached, but she always came back.

He remembers that tug, and the look in her eye, and the sound of gun fire.

They were lost.

He had to remind himself of that from time to time. That day, the day when the alliance made an example of a little town on a little planet, he lost his family. They weren't coming back, no matter how much he railed against the alliance, they were gone and he was here.

"Not lost completely"

Rivers sing song voice startled him; he made for Washes seat on the bridge, knowing she would take the other. They had fallen into a sort of rhythm, she spoke and he listened as they flew her.

He nodded his head and consented, he'd come to that conclusion some years ago as well. They were still with him. In his heart, his soul really, he'd never lose them completely that way.

"Not lost at all" was her reply to…well nothing really.

It had been three months since Miranda. They had, through it all, been able to keep flying. The alliance was weakened. In some place significantly, but in most places not nearly enough. They were still quite powerful, and the recent memory of war kept those who angered from retaliating too quickly. They were able to find work, but they walked a fine wire. Their reputation had spread, and their jobs evolved with it.

Mr. Universe had left a bundle for them; a clue came in a wave a few days after Miranda. It was both too much and not enough. They were comfortable with that and their jobs, but they wanted to do so much more.

At least they were together, despite everything they were all together.

Not true really, though, they had to take Inara to Apos. She'd been sick, much too sick for the Doc to do anything. They found a place for her, with such beauty and comfort. They visited her often; Kaylee would brush her hair and paint her nails. River would dance for her. Mal had taken to lying with her. Not in the biblical sense, mind you, just cuddling up next to her and letting her sleep in his warmth. They had gotten a wave from her care taker, she was close, no more than a month or so left, and she was asking about her shuttle. They had about three days left before they got there, and some muddy waters too.

* * *

_**Something's wrong.**_

Dove remembers the look in his eyes as she spoke the words out loud. The gun fire had startled her, she was holding baby Jamie and felt his head burrow into the crook of her neck as Mal pulled them along faster towards the docks. None of this was right. They had suffered enough. They had given up on this dusty rock and were headed somewhere new.

Mama had pulled her out of that alley, took her to the Doc to get an inhaler, washed her up and had her home for Papa's birthday dinner that night. It was the first time she could remember eating a hot meal in over a year. She was in and out of the girl's home for the year after Aunt Haley died, but there was a shepherd there that was fond of the little ones so she had taken to the streets. She was twelve, well was pretty sure she was twelve, and couldn't read or write. Mama brought her home and gave her a place to sleep.

The Reynolds place was busy, so many kids running about. There was Mal, the middle one, he was a year or so older than Dove. Then Gracie, seventeen, and the oldest Oliver, who was nineteen, the little ones were the twins, Jenny and John, who were about six.

Gracie had fallen in love with a military man and was on her way to marriage and one of the inner planets later that year. Oliver helped Papa run the farm, they had a few crops and sold some eggs and such, but they mostly worked with cattle.

Mama had enrolled Dove in school the next day, telling them that she was a family friend whose parents had recently died, not a whole lie. Dove didn't stay there very long; especially once they figured out she couldn't read. They tried to stick her in the kinder class, with Jenny and John.

She was walking down the street, a month or so after she had stopped going to school and ran away from the house, picking up sticks so that she could cook the eggs she stole from the baker while the back door was open. Mama came out of nowhere ranting about "you need your education!" and asking her where her inhaler was and why she didn't have proper shoes on. She took her home that night and set her up with some of Gracie's old clothes and shoes. The only bed available in the house was in the room with Mal. He was obviously angry with her. Wouldn't look her in the eye and shut out the light before she had even gotten in bed that night.

"Miss Dove! Miss Dove!"

An eager 4 year old pulled at her skirt. She was holding a picture she had painted; it was smeared with blue and green with a few smudges of charcoal.

"Oh!_** It's beautiful!** _Tell me about it."

Her curly red hair bounced as she excitedly pointed.

"The green is the ground and the blue is the sky and the black is my old house that burned down when the men in white uniforms came."

Dove blinked a few times before kissing her on the head and telling her to put her picture in her cubby so it didn't get lost.

Stories like that were common on Apos. They were out on the edge, a tiny colony on a planet that ended up not having as much use as they thought. Now they mostly were hydroponic farmers, the climate was too cold to be much else. The other thing they did was caretaking. If you had one of the few diseases that couldn't be cured and had less than six months to live, you were typically sent here. Sometimes family visited you, but usually one was sent here to have a quiet and comfortable death.

Small planets were often used as examples. The Alliance didn't involve themselves much in the day to day of the planet, so it was a popular hide out for criminals. Every year or so the alliance would send a troop over to one of these little planets and burn down a village that had that type of reputation. The example never worked, but it kept the people bitter and hard.

Dove ended up here in a roundabout way, she had traveled around a lot during the war. Found work here and there, and finally settled on Apos. You could say she had found what she was searching for.

A job as a teacher at a preschool opened up, she just had to forge a few diplomas and she was in. Let's just say it's hard to go to college with no money in the middle of a war zone.

Dove stopped at the care center on her way home. Her friend Louisa was a nurse and usually needed a drink after long exhausting days comforting weary and saddened families, while also trying to be family enough for the ones who weren't visited. She'd had a new client the last few months, she was young and important. She was moved to an empty part of the center when she was visited, and no one but the head nurse ever saw him. Well they all assumed it was a him, on account of the fact that they were all sure she used to be a Companion.

As Dove entered the center she saw a man coming in fast on her left. A doctor Louisa mentioned had his eye on her. She racked her brain trying to remember his name, Francis?Bran?Yosef? She hadn't the slightest idea.

"You're Louisa's friend, right? Is it Dove?"

She smiled as she looked briefly at his name tag, George, she wasn't even close.

"Yes, Dr. Llang, have you seen her?"

"Oh call me George! Yes actually, she wanted me to tell you that she was going to have to stay late today, one of the other nurses had an emergency and Louisa took her shift. "

Dove began to nod and back away, this man might be good for a roll in the sheets, and lord knew she needed it, but thinking of Mal today got her into that bothered place. A man's hands couldn't distract her from it, eventually it would move to the background again. It never quite left her.

George followed her movements but didn't take the hint. He leaned in a little closer and put his hand on her arm.

"Tell you what, why don't you let me buy you a drink? I've had a _**shit**_ day and could use one myself."

He smiled a bit and game her arm a rub. Dove knew what tonight would hold if she let it. The mood she was in she would drink about five, and take him home. She didn't want him, though. She wanted a man she had lost forever. She would just feel right dirty in the morning.

Her mind was steering her in the right direction…but her body…it wanted comfort.

"Sure!"

Smiling she shifted and moved a bit closer to him.

"Are you ready to go now?"

He nodded and slipped his hand into hers as they walked out the front doors.

They burst into his apartment, kissing and tugging at each others clothes. She had been wrong; it only took her three drinks before she got him to show her his apartment, because he just finished decorating.

His hands felt good on her, strong and steady as he lifted her by her bottom and carried her into the bedroom. She couldn't get rid of the guilt heavy in the pit of her stomach, though. She pushed it out of her mind as they fell on the bed, tangled and a little desperate.

Their clothes had disappeared, leaving her in her mismatched bra and underwear and him in a pair of silk boxers. He was panting as he pinned her on the bed. Rolling over he reached into the bedside table and pulled out two long silver tubes, no larger than a marker.

"_**Do you mind**_?" George asked.

They were insta's, you used them to test for STD's. It worried her a little that he just had them sitting in his bedside table, but he was a doctor and wasn't that the responsible thing anyways?

She nodded and wordlessly took the tube and let it take a sample from her finger. He did the same and they exchanged tubes. The word clear appeared on his moments later, and from the smile on his face it was on hers as well.

Dove found her pants on the ground and pulled out her wallet.

"Do you have any water?" George was back within seconds and she quickly swallowed the preventative contraceptive she kept with her.

"Are you sure about this?" George seemed genuinely concerned for her. His hand was stroking her hair and he kissed her once on the temple.

He was a good man. Responsible, kind, considerate, he made a good living, and she liked talking to him. Why shouldn't she be with someone like that? Why shouldn't she stop mourning this ghost and give a real relationship a shot?

She turned her head to his and kissed him full. Her hands gently pushed him onto his back and she straddled him quickly. She could feel him hard under her and she ground down a little.

His hands immediately pulled her down harder and she felt herself ache a bit for him. Closing her eyes she tried to shake his face out of her mind, tried to keep going through the motions and not thinking of the last time they were together.

As much as she tried, though, when he entered her there was another face in her thoughts another name on her lips. She had to bite down on her fist to keep from crying it out.

She woke early, before the sun. She dressed silently and wrote George a note. She left her phone number; half hoping he would turn out to be someone who would never call her.

She knew it would take her an hour or so to walk home but she needed the time to think. Justifying last night how she had others in the past. She was never sure of who she felt like she had betrayed more, the man who thought he was with her or the man she was picturing.

As she arrived at her little duplex on the older side of town the sun was rising. She saw a firefly class ship landing in the care center. Supplies? That ship usually came in the afternoon. She shook it from her mind. After showering and putting on a clean nightgown she climbed into bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.


End file.
